|
The protesters were well organized and well prepared. They had
long anticipated the rancorous debate on immigration reform in
Congress this spring. Hundreds of thousands of predominantly Hispanic
and Latino immigrants dressed in white and filled the streets of
Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Washington, and any number of smaller
towns across the country in April. They skipped work and cut school
to make their feelings known about the controversial bills lurching
their way through the halls of Congress.
The organizers got their first whiff of the hot winds blowing when
H.R. 4437, the "Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal
Immigration Control Act of 2005," was offered by Wisconsin
Republican James Sensenbrenner last fall. The bill, which passed
the House in December, calls for the construction of more than
700 miles of fencing along the border with Mexico, as well as a
study of the feasibility of constructing a similar barrier between
the U.S. and Canada. Considered draconian in some quarters, H.R.
4437 would also make a first conviction for driving while intoxicated
a deportable offense for undocumented immigrants. It would broaden
the definition of "alien smuggling" to include churches,
employers, family members, and other advocates who assist undocumented
immigrants.
While the bill was being considered on the floor of the House,
members tacked on other controversial amendments. One would make
English the official language of the United States; another would
end birthright citizenship--the extension of automatic U.S. citizenship
to children born here, regardless of their parents' immigration
status.
Countering the House bill, Senators Ted Kennedy and John McCain
offered a more moderate, bipartisan plan for reform that would
provide a path to citizenship for undocumented residents, while
Senators John Cornyn of Texas and John Kyl of Arizona offered yet
another version of reform, one that refused the opportunity for
permanent residence to temporary workers and added mandatory return
program for migrants already here illegally. Ultimately, an attempt
at compromise among these various plans stalled in April. On the
first day of May, hundreds of thousands of marchers again took
to the streets in dozens of cities, declaring a national boycott
of work, school, and shopping to demonstrate the economic clout
of immigrants. Plants closed, construction sites were silent, restaurants
sat empty. More protests are planned for the summer, though it
is not clear whether the matter will be taken up by Congress again
before the midterm elections this fall.
Wide-ranging policy debates on immigration are nothing new, according
to Noah Pickus, the associate director of the Kenan Institute for
Ethics at Duke. Immigration policy is a complex topic that perennially
brings up questions about the meaning of assimilation, the process
of obtaining U.S. citizenship, and the penalties (or lack thereof)
for those arriving here without proper paperwork to fill jobs that
native-born Americans do not want. In an op-ed piece for the Raleigh
News & Observer last fall, Pickus wrote, "For the past
twenty years, the immigration and citizenship landscape has been
characterized by wild swings between emotionally fraught, divisive
positions and radical proposals: Deport all illegal aliens or offer
them amnesty; slash social benefits for immigrants or increase
them substantially; build day-labor centers or give a wink and
nudge to the presence of illegal workers."
In a new book, True Faith and Allegiance: Immigration and American
Civic Nationalism (Princeton University Press), Pickus takes the
long view, offering a reflective journey through the many iterations
of this country's immigration policies. On the more welcoming side
of the question, he notes, George Washington once wrote that America
was "open to receive not only the opulent and respectable
stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all nations and religions." At
the same time, others in the Continental Congress feared that promises
of easy land ownership and wealth accumulation in the new nation
would bring in "undesirables." Without rigorous limits
on immigration and a clear process of naturalization, the nation
would soon be at risk of developing a class of indigent dependents,
they said.
Now the stakes are arguably much higher. Since 9/11, America's
desire to monitor the comings and goings of potential terrorists
is at odds with its simultaneous appetite for inexpensive foreign
labor. In his State of the Union address in January, President
Bush signaled the next round of debate by floating his idea of
a guest-worker program, while also calling for stronger immigration
enforcement and border protection. "We hear claims that immigrants
are somehow bad for the economy--even though this economy could
not function without them," the president said.
Today it is impossible to miss the extent to which immigrants fuel
the nation's economic engine: as consumers, as well as workers.
In 1990 the U.S. Census recorded the largest number of foreign-born
residents ever documented in American history. Among the 19.7 million
immigrants on record that year, more than twice as many nationalities
were represented as had been present during the country's last
major wave of immigration in the 1920s. The traditional "gateway" states
of California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Texas
initially received the majority of these newcomers. But by the
next census, in 2000, immigration had spread more evenly across
the nation. Up by another 56 percent in a single decade, the number
of foreign-born residents in the U.S. at the turn of the twenty-first
century was 31.1 million out of a total of 281.4 million residents.
More than halfway into the first decade of the twenty-first century,
most of us witness the demographic changes daily--in the workplace,
on the news, at dual-language ATM machines, and in things as simple
as the variety of foods available on local menus and in grocery
stores. Though Spanish-speaking immigrants top the list in sheer
numbers in many regions, the U.S. is a destination for hundreds
of ethnic groups. In new gateway states like North Carolina, students
coming into public-school classrooms speak as many as 200 different
languages and dialects.
Projections for the future are even more striking. One of the nation's
leading analysts of consumer trends, Walker Smith, president of
the marketing firm Yankelovich Inc., suggested in a recent speech
that, by 2040, America will be the second-largest Hispanic nation
in the world, second only to Mexico. "And by 2050, non-Hispanic
Caucasians will be a minority group in this country," Smith
said, noting that savvy marketers are already paying close attention.
Crayon manufacturer Binney and Smith has introduced a new version
of their most famous product. Crayola "Multicultural Crayons" pledge
that "an assortment of skin hues gives children a realistic
palette to color their world."
• continues on
page two. |
